SEED CERTIFICATION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 October 1940, Page 9

SEED CERTIFICATION

CLOSING DATE FOR ENTRIES. On another page of this issue the closing dates for seed certification entries are announced and for the information of those interested it might be as well to briefly outline the alterations in the certification scheme which has come into effect this year. So far as perennial ryegrass is concerned the only areas which need to be entered for inspection are those sown with certified Government stock seed or certified pedigree seed. The produce of all other areas will be eligible as certified permanent pasture seed only, and will be tested by the Ultra-Violet lamp on machine dressed sample. White clover entries, also, will as usual be confined to areas sown with Government stock seed, while no alteration has been made to red clover certification. The greatest changes have taken place in wheat certification and have resulted in the almost total elimination of the scheme so far as the Wairarapa is concerned. The only entries which will be accepted will be those sown with certain selected lines of seed of particularly superior quality and only one of these lines —a line of Cross 7 —is at present known to have reached this district. Some disappointment may be felt at this action, but it is described essentially as an emergency measure and will have important effects so far as the South Island is concerned where, in some areas, routine wheat certification took up practically the whole of Field Officers’ time.